falls backwards, and a second angle shows the man who was with martin running from the scene. this is a tragedy for all of us and our hearts certainly go out to the decedent s family, but bad choices were made, we didn t have the opportunity that this individual could have complied with the officers, the officer, i m sorry, he could have ran away, he could have dropped the gun and all sorts of things couldn t p happen. at least four people were arrested for assaulting police officers after the shooting. some police cars were damaged and windows were broken at a gas station across the street. antonio martin s mother says as far sooz as she knew, her son didn t own a gun. his girlfriend told me that police was messing with him. he was getting ready to run, when he was trying to get up and run, they started shooting him. reporter: but police say martin had been arrested numerous times on charges including assault and armed robbery and the officer was in fear for his life.
officer was responding to this larceny call at this gas station. the officer was carrying a flashlight and approached two men on the side of the building. that s when the officers say one of the men pulled a gun and pointed it at officers. this is a tragedy for everybody and our hearts go out to the decedent s family. but bad choices were made. we didn t have the opportunity that this individual could have complied with the officer. he could have run away, he could have dropped the gun. all sorts of things could have happened. reporter: the suspect s handgun had been arrested. he had been arrested several times since he was 17. leah: after the shooting a crowd formed and the area grew tense.
we were able to partition this young man s body off so nobody could see it while we were working the ian scene. we transported him approximately 1:30 to 1:40 hours this morning. we seized video from the mobile on the run station. they have several cameras. i have a still footage and i will show you some of the video. you will be sent that. we have at least two witnesses that saw this incident happen, too. i talked a little bit about the fact that the individual, the decedent had another individual with him. that s a person of interest on the case that we want to talk to. there is video footage i would like you guys to show if the media to see if we can identify this person. all right. that s st. louis county police chief running down the events leading to an 18-year-old man shot by police overnight at a gas station after the
on the right. first of all, there was no racism in this case. there s no indication this was if this man were a white man resisting arrest at that same size the same thing would happen. from my knowledge of the case there s absolutely no element of racism here and there was no intent by the police officer to cause any type of deadly harm or physical harm at all to the decedent here to mr. garner. i think this would have happened to a white guy doing the same thing. i don t think it had to do with skin color. i think it had to do with poor judgments made by the group of police officers. joining me now, msnbc political analyst michael eric dyson. michael of course got into it with former mayor rudy giuliani on meet the press on precisely this issue. what is your reaction to that? on the one hand you ve got so many folks saying look, this was messed up, it s hard to look at that tape and think it wasn t messed up, but this isn t about race. you know, this is about the just
from my knowledge of the case there s absolutely no element of racism here and there was no intent by the police officer to cause any type of deadly harm or physical harm at all to the decedent here to mr. garner. i think this would have happened to a white guy doing the same thing. i don t think it had to do with skin color. i think it had to do with poor judgments made by the group of police officers. joining me now, msnbc political analyst michael eric dyson. michael of course got into it with former mayor rudy giuliani on meet the press on precisely this issue. what is your reaction to that? on the one hand you ve got so many folks saying look, this was messed up, it s hard to look at that tape and think it wasn t messed up, but this isn t about race. you know, this is about the just the police or this sort of thing is a tragic accident. well, a couple of things, chris. on the one hand it makes me know that what i m doing is so important in schools that i m trying to teac